Police
investigators say that suspended Senator Mike Duffy stayed regularly at hotels
and not his “primary residence” in the investigation into his disputed
expenses.

Duffy spent 35 nights in Charlottetown hotels in the winters between
2009 and 2012 instead of staying at his declared residence in Cavendish for
which he claimed housing expenses, court documents show.

Lead investigator Corporal Greg Horton has obtained a search warrant to
inspect the hotel records for Duffy’s stays when he travelled to Prince Edward
Island.

“Senator Duffy has collected almost $90,000 from the Senate, claiming
his primary residence is a cottage that he does not live in for at least four
months of each year,” Horton said.

Duffy was suspended from the Senate last November along with Senators
Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin over expense claims.

Mac Harb resigned from the Senate last August after paying back $231,000
for ineligible housing and travel expenses.

Police have proceeded with fraud and breach of trust charges against
Brazeau and Harb and continue to investigate Duffy and Wallin’s expenses.

---

Canada’s
jobless rate edged higher to 7 percent last month, up 0.1 percent, even as the economy
created about 25,800 net new jobs.

Most of the jobs, however, were part-time and more people were looking
for work in May, Statistics Canada said.

The results follow a surprise loss of 29,000 jobs in April while over
the past year 86,000 new jobs were created, a 0.5 percent increase, but largely
in part-time positions.

Biggest job gains were in Alberta, up 16,400 workers, while Newfoundland
and Labrador lost 4,100 full-time jobs.

---

News in brief:

-
Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured a Canadian military cemetery in France on
Friday on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day attack on Juno Beach. There were 340
Canadian soldiers killed that day and 18,000 casualties in the Second World
War’s Normandy campaign. Canadians can take enormous pride that their troops
played “such a pivotal role in ensuring the success of the D-Day landings,” he
said.

-
Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the proposed prostitution bill will
criminalize the purchase of sexual services. The “made-in-Canada” model is
aimed at targeting johns and pimps while protecting the vulnerable, he said. It
is in response to the Supreme Court of Canada ruling to strike down key parts
of the prostitution laws. The court said they were unconstitutional and told the
government to replace them.

---

Facts and figures:

Canada’s
dollar is lower at 91.48 cents U.S. while the U.S. dollar returns $1.0931 in
Canadian funds, before bank exchange fees.

The
Bank of Canada has kept its key interest rate steady at 1 percent while the
prime-lending rate unchanged at 3 percent.

Stock
markets are higher, with the Toronto exchange index at 14,895 points and the
TSX Venture index at 985 points.

The average price of a liter of gasoline in Canada is up at $1.3552 (Canadian).

-
Only a week before Ontario’s provincial election, police served a court order
at the legislature into the alleged cover-up of the Liberal government’s
decision to cancel two gas plants. The move to stop the work already underway
helped the Liberals win the 2011 election but cost taxpayers about $1.1
billion. Investigators want records concerning the deletion of emails and
wiping of computer hard drives in the premier’s office.

-
A landmark Quebec bill, called an act “respecting end-of-life care,” was passed
in a 94-22 vote. The right-to-die bill could be challenged by the federal
government as assisted suicide and euthanasia are illegal. It would allow
someone with unbearable physical or psychological suffering and deemed mentally
sound to make such a request.

-
British Columbia teachers are planning a vote on whether to escalate their
contract protests to a full-scale strike. “Teachers are prepared to take a
stand,” said Jim Iker, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation. The teachers
are into their third week of rotating strikes to back contract demands and plan
to close every school in each district for one day in the next week.